Although I'm not trying to dwell on the curious turn of the Non-Euclidean Astronomy etc. thread, the last comment about Don't Fix It If It Ain't Broke conjures up a fascinating picture of the Twin Towers at the WTC on 9-11 just before the plane bombings, with a captain underneath that says DON'T FIX IT IF IT AIN'T BROKE. That says it all about Bad Astronomy, Bad Plumbing, Bad Engineering, and Bad Politics.

Osher Doctorow

And your point is?

(not to be taken in a mean way)

How would you have "fixed" the towers, before September of 2001?

With air defense, ferchrissake!
The scenario was in the air since WWII...

See that is the problem, they were a very safe structure. Heck i remember watching a history channel program on the subject that fiinished filming right before 9/11/01 (or 11/9/01 your pick). They had one of the original designers being interviewed and he even mentioned that when planing they took the posibility of a aircraft hit into their plans. The only problem is that they did not take into the planing a full tank of jet fuel and the heat of its fire on the structure.

There was no way to plan ahaed for it except to put a missle battery on every building and that is just impossible.

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GIYUL :-)
"It takes Thousands to fight a battle for a mile, Millions to hold an election for a nation, but it only takes One to change the world." - Dan Sandler 2002

Oh, I know the possibilities. But you also have to include justification that would have allowed the expense. That's part of the answer to "How would you have 'fixed' the towers..." Sure the towers were a target (they'd been bombed before), but any large structure would have been just as vulnerable--Sears tower, shuttle launch facilities, Mount Rushmore, Disney****, ships at sea (civilian or not). In fact, the last kinda brings up another point. Military ships at sea do have a certain amount of air defense. Prior to 9/2001, would anyone have shot down a civilian airliner though?

And look at all the resistance to some of the airline procedures in place now--there's no way such things would have been allowed before 9/2001.

The problem is, if you armed the towers and then blasted the incoming planes into terrorist mush, ballistics dictate that they would still continue and may have very well struck the building anyway. However, instead of one huge impact near the top trapping a few people, there would be a large number of smaller impacts all about the joint, probably further down, trapping many people and perhaps taking surrounding buildings with it.

Do you mean caption?

Time for me to play taskmaster: this thread is not about astronomy, and I don't see any relation to astronomy at all. Locked.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com